Hugh Freeze couldn’t hide the relief on his face.
The conversation surrounding him and Auburn was finally about football. Winning football.
Auburn beat Baylor 38-24 to open the season on Friday. For now, it puts some of the negative talk about Auburn on pause. Whether it’s recruiting, arrests, past performances or the head coach golfing, the Tigers have had a handful of negative reasons to be in the news.
All of those issues made room for valid criticism of the program, and the only way to quiet that criticism was to win.
As Freeze sat down in the visiting team’s interview room, he knew his team had done just that. The Tigers were 1-0 and had picked up just their fifth road win since he became Auburn’s head coach.
“I thought it was a solid, solid effort,” Freeze said, “just thankful we’re 1-0 against a pretty good football team.”
Given the context of its seven losses a year ago, Auburn shouldn’t take beating a “pretty good football team” for granted. Each time the Tigers were on the verge of that in 2024, some kind of mistake or flurry of missteps would ruin the day.
Are those collapses in the past? It didn’t happen on Friday, but Baylor is still far from the best team the Tigers will face this season.
Auburn’s performance wasn’t mistake-free. The Tigers committed nine penalties for 83 yards, and a handful of those extended a Baylor drive or stalled an Auburn drive.
While penalties were an issue, Auburn avoided the critical blows: turnovers. Neither team turned the ball over on Friday, and Auburn’s ability to protect the football allowed it to never lose the lead it took in the first quarter.
“I don’t want to talk much about those, but we had our share of them last season for sure,” Freeze said when asked about turnovers. “You look at the stats last year, what we averaged per play, it was pretty dang good. But it doesn’t measure up when you turn it over. That was good to see us take care of the ball tonight, for sure.”
The Tigers also scored on all three of their redzone trips against Baylor, another area that hurt them last season. Thank the running game for fixing that issue, specifically Damari Alston and Jeremiah Cobb’s ability to run through contact near the endzone.
The run game defined Friday’s win. Auburn rushed for 307 yards, led by 137 from Jackson Arnold, the Tigers’ new quarterback. Alston and Cobb combined for another 158 yards and Alston’s words to reporters as he was leaving the interview room seemed to sum up the offense’s mentality.
“Three things that’s true. You better tell them!” Alston exclaimed toward starting center Connor Lew. “Death, taxes, and Auburn’s going to run the ball.”
Auburn passed its first real test, something it didn’t do last year. That doesn’t automatically make it a championship contender. It doesn’t necessarily mean anything past Week 1.
However, it proved Auburn can not only be the better team, but also finish against a team that won’t go away. That didn’t happen last year and turned what could’ve been a 7-5 or 8-4 season into a 5-7 season.
Friday proved Auburn can turn those results around, which could start to change opinions on what this team can be in 2025.
Peter Rauterkus covers Auburn sports for AL.com. You can follow him on X at @peter_rauterkus or email him at prauterkus@al.com
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